Money isn't what you think it is. Honestly, most people walk around with a wallet full of linen-paper rectangles or a banking app full of digits without ever wondering where that value actually originates. It feels solid. It feels like "the government." But the reality is way weirder and involves a cold November night in 1910, a private train car with frosted windows, and a group of men who controlled one-sixth of the entire world's wealth. This is the story of the Creature from Jekyll Island.
It’s not a literal monster. There's no swamp thing dripping with moss. The "creature" is the Federal Reserve System, a name coined by G. Edward Griffin in his massive, controversial book that basically accused the American banking elite of staging a coup against the US dollar.
The Coded Telegrams and the Secret Train
If you were standing on a train platform in New Jersey in 1910, you might have seen a group of men boarding a private car owned by Senator Nelson Aldrich. They used only first names. No last names allowed. If a reporter had spotted them, the headline would have broken the country. You had Aldrich, the "General Manager of the United States," alongside representatives from the Rockefeller, Morgan, and Kuhn Loeb empires.
Why the secrecy? Because the American public at the turn of the century absolutely loathed the "Money Trust." If the voters knew that the biggest bankers in the world were drafting the new national banking law, it would have been dead on arrival. They told their families they were going on a duck hunting trip. Jekyll Island, Georgia, was their destination—an ultra-exclusive club where the world's elite went to hide.
For nine days, they hammered out a plan. They weren't just "talking shop." They were designing a central bank. But they couldn't call it a central bank because that sounded too European and too "Big Government." Instead, they settled on the "Federal Reserve System" to make it sound decentralized and official.
What the Creature Actually Is
The Creature from Jekyll Island is essentially a marriage between the federal government and the largest private banks. Think of it as a legal cartel. Before 1913, the US had a chaotic system of thousands of different banks issuing their own notes. It was messy. It was prone to "panics."
The bankers wanted "elasticity." That's the fancy word they used. It sounds good, right? Elastic sounds flexible. In reality, elasticity means the power to create money out of thin air. When the government needs money it doesn't have, it issues a bond (a glorified IOU). The Federal Reserve then "buys" that bond by writing a check on an account that has a zero balance. Presto. Money is created.
This sounds like a magic trick because it is. But here’s the kicker: that new money enters the economy and dilutes the value of every dollar already in your pocket. That is the definition of inflation. It’s a hidden tax. You don't see it on your W-2, but you see it at the grocery store.
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The Four Objectives of the Jekyll Island Meeting
When those men sat in that wood-paneled room in Georgia, they had very specific goals. They weren't there for the scenery.
- Stop the growing competition from new banks in the West and South.
- Get the power to create money for the purpose of lending it to the government, which is the most profitable "customer" a bank can have because they can tax the citizens to pay you back.
- Structure the system so that losses are socialized (passed to the taxpayers) while profits remain private.
- Convince Congress that this was a populist move to protect the "little guy" from the "Money Trust."
They pulled it off. It’s arguably the greatest PR stunt in financial history. They even had Senator Aldrich propose a version of the bill that was designed to be defeated so that the Democrats could propose a "different" version (the Glass-Owen Act) that was actually almost identical to the Jekyll Island draft.
Is it a Conspiracy or Just Business?
Griffin’s book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, is often dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by mainstream economists. They’ll tell you that a central bank is necessary to manage the business cycle, prevent bank runs, and maintain stable prices. They point to the 1907 panic as proof that the old system was broken.
But look at the track record since 1913. Has the dollar been stable? Not really. The US dollar has lost over 96% of its purchasing power since the Fed was created. Have we avoided recessions? Definitely not. We’ve had the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 70s, the 2008 crash, and the post-2020 inflationary spike.
The critics of the Fed, like the late Murray Rothbard or former Congressman Ron Paul, argue that the "creature" doesn't fix economic cycles—it causes them. By artificially lowering interest rates, the Fed encourages people and businesses to take on too much debt. This creates a "bubble." Eventually, that bubble has to pop. When it does, the Fed "saves" the day by creating more money, starting the whole cycle over again.
The "Mandrake Mechanism"
Griffin uses a great analogy called the Mandrake Mechanism. Mandrake the Magician was an old comic strip character who could make people see things that weren't there.
When the Fed creates money, it’s not backed by gold. It hasn't been since 1971, but even before then, it was only partially backed. Today, it’s backed by "debt." It’s a debt-based currency. Every dollar in circulation represents a dollar that someone, somewhere, owes to a bank with interest.
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If everyone in the world paid off every single debt tomorrow—every mortgage, every credit card, every government bond—the entire money supply would literally vanish. There would be no dollars. That's a weird thought, isn't it? Our "wealth" is actually just a reflection of how much we owe the "creature."
Why Does This Matter to You Today?
You might be thinking, "Cool history lesson, but I have a job to do."
It matters because the decisions made on Jekyll Island in 1910 are why your rent doubled in five years while your salary barely budged. It’s why the "wealth gap" is a canyon. Those closest to the source of the new money (the big banks and the government) get to spend it before prices rise. By the time that money trickles down to you, the prices of milk, gas, and houses have already jumped.
It’s called the Cantillon Effect. It’s a feature of the system, not a bug.
Facing the Reality of the System
We live in the "Creature's" world. The Federal Reserve isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It’s baked into the global financial architecture. But understanding that the Fed is a private entity with private shareholders (the member banks) and not a government agency is the first step toward financial sanity.
It’s not "federal," and it has no "reserves" in the traditional sense. It’s a partnership. A cartel. A creature born in a Georgia hunting club that grew up to eat the world's purchasing power.
How to Protect Yourself from the "Creature"
Stop thinking of the dollar as a "store of value." It’s a medium of exchange, but it’s a terrible place to park your life savings for 40 years. If the "creature" is designed to create inflation, then holding cash is a losing game.
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Look at what the banks themselves do. They don't just hold cash. They hold assets. They hold real estate. They hold "hard" things that the "creature" can't print into oblivion.
Diversify into assets that have a fixed supply. This is why people get so obsessed with gold, silver, or even Bitcoin. These things can't be "created" by a group of men in a secret room in Georgia. They require work, mining, or math to produce. They are the antithesis of the Jekyll Island philosophy.
Understand the debt trap. Since our money is debt, the system wants you to be in debt. It feeds on interest. The less interest you pay to the "creature" and its offspring (the commercial banks), the more of your own labor you actually get to keep.
Educate yourself on the history of money. Read The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin. Even if you don't agree with every one of his conclusions, the primary source documents he cites about the 1910 meeting are undeniable. Read the memoirs of the men who were there, like Frank Vanderlip. They eventually bragged about what they did once they were old and the system was firmly in place.
Watch the interest rate cycles. When the Fed signals they are going to "pivot" or change rates, they are essentially turning the faucet of the global economy. Don't be the last person to realize the water has been turned off.
Focus on building "productive" wealth. Ownership in businesses, land that produces food or timber, or skills that are indispensable regardless of what the currency is called. The "creature" can manipulate the currency, but it can't manipulate the fundamental laws of supply and demand for things people actually need.
The story of Jekyll Island isn't just a dusty chapter from 1910. It is the operating system of your life. Once you see the "creature," you can't unsee it. You start to realize that the "economy" isn't some mystical force of nature—it’s a carefully managed system designed by very real people with very specific interests. Play the game accordingly.